Sentence Examples

TELEGONY (Gr.

Weismann, all the leading biologists had either subscribed to the telegony doctrine or admitted that "infection of the germ" was well within the bounds of possibilities.

The widespread belief, he admitted, "may be justifiable and founded on fact," but he was careful to add that "only the confirmation of the tradition by methodical investigation, in this case by experiment, could raise telegony to the rank of a fact."

The importance of determining whether there is such a thing as telegony is sufficiently evident.

If a mare or other female animal is liable to be "infected" by her first or by subsequent mates, telegony will rank as a cause of variation, and breeders will be justified in believing (1) that pure-bred females are liable to be "corrupted" when mated with sires of a different breed; and (2) that inferior or cross-bred females, if first mated with a high-class sire, will thereafter produce superior offspring, however inferior or cross-bred her subsequent mates.